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Enter The Broome Cupboard

Every week or so, I send an email newsletter that contains all manner of interesting links and information about reading, writing and publishing. It's completely free and you can unsubscribe at any time. Come on in. Make yourself a cup of tea. Get comfortable.

Last summer, when I was working freelance, I got chance write and produce a series of educational videos for my then client and now actual employer, Cornerstones Education.

I made this video on the theory of evolution using Videoscribe, a really nifty piece of software by UK-based company, Sparkol. It's a great tool for creating presentations and explaining stuff in a simple, engaging way.

Which is good, because I can tell you that natural selection is a pretty tricky concept to explain to 10 and 11 year olds!

Anyway, I tell you this in the spirit of sharing some of what I've been up to. Oh, and to outright brag about the video being shortlisted for the Scribey awards in the best educational scribe category.

In episode 150 of the Write for Your Life podcast, me and Donna talk about measurements of success, how to approach the sheer endurance challenge of writing a book, where to go to fight the grammar gremlins, and the fascinating art of the chapter.

In episode 149 of the Write for Your Life podcast, me and Donna talk about the TV show, Vikings, and oversmizing. More importantly, we also cover podcasting woes and talk for quite some time about that wonderful phrase, authorpreneurship. Expect minor ranting.

In this somewhat delayed Valentine's episode, me and Donna talk about 'my Dad, the pornographer' and his incredible writing system, speech marks or not for writing dialogue, and various outlining techniques for writing a book. About that delay. I'm afraid we had some microphone issues that we thought were Skype issues, which led to a lot of editing to get it into a listenable state. Many apologies. Hopefully you don't mind too much.

In episode 147 of the Write for Your Life podcast, me and Donna talk about personality tests, Harper Lee's upcoming novel being published (finally!), testing a book idea before you start, A is for Angelica and piracy, working on more than one project at a time, and a mischievous knight of the realm.

I’m pleased to tell you that I am featured in this month’s edition of Writing Magazine (March). The article is about ‘My Writing Day’, although there really isn’t any such thing, so my contribution ended up being a bit more general than that.

Sadly, there is no online version of the full article, but you can always order the print edition or just click on the image above to read a scanned version. I’ve also pulled out some of the more interesting parts and included them below.

On finding time to work now I have children:

I’ve tried to embrace the idea that all you really need is a keyboard and a screen. I try and snatch pockets of time throughout the day, even if it means working on my mobile phone or having to stop before I feel like I’ve even begun. Writing is often about momentum and children make that very difficult to maintain. Anything I can do to keep going is a great help.

On sacrifice and getting stuck in:

It’s my belief that half the battle for writers is getting used to the idea of sacrifice. It’s impossible to maintain a busy social life, any kind of job or study, and then write something, like a novel, too. At some point, you have to say no to one or more of those other things and get stuck into the writing. It’s not easy, but the only way to juggle effectively is to put one of the balls down and make things easier for yourself.

On writing on an iPad:

Writing on an iPad is great because it means I can only access one app at a time. There’s no flipping back and forth between email and social media. I just go to my writing and that fills the screen.

In episode 146 of the Write for Your Life podcast, we cover Helen McDonald's H is for Hawk winning the Costa prize and the harsh reality of publishing poetry. Plus, should you copyright your work before submitting it? Can robots write novels? Finally, we talk about the stuff no one tells you about book publishing!

Last weekend, I found myself at a grubby reclamation yard. Not in a revelatory, momentous, personal kind of way. I simply mean I was there. In person. At the reclamation yard.

This is important because I was there with my wife and not my children, who are beautiful, all-encompassing creatures who fill my days with joy and nonsense. When I am with them, they have my full attention.

This is also important.

We went to the reclamation yard because we wanted to buy a wood burner on the cheap and we’d dropped the boys off at my parents, so we could get stuff done. It's a strange place, the reclamation yard, three portacabins jigsawed together beneath a corrugated roof that looks like it could go at any minute. It is cold, damp and full of curiosities.

We quickly found the wood burners. We stood by the wood burners. We talked about the wood burners. We had questions about the wood burners. My wife left to find the man. It is almost always a man.

While I waited, I looked around at shelves and shelves of tat and treasures. In that brief, solitary moment, all I saw was stories. Stories, stories everywhere. Stories and questions.

That piano, with its broken-teeth keys and filthy lid. Where did it come from? Who did it belong to? Why did they stop playing?

I took out my phone, swiped up to access the camera, took a picture.

I left my position by the wood burners and started walking. My mind wandered with me.

I found doors. Dozens of doors. Doors that must have opened and closed, opened and closed, opened and closed, thousands and thousands of times.

Who did that one belong to? The blue door. The blue door on its own amongst the other, more plain-looking doors. Whose door was that? Was blue their favourite colour? Maybe they hated that door. Perhaps they’d wanted to paint it red, but someone else wanted it blue. Was there an argument? A fist fight?

I kept going, noticed a group of chairs, none of which matched.

One chair had a name on it.

Harry Redshaw.

Who was Harry Redshaw and why was he so special? Maybe he was chairman of his local bowls club and when he retired, they put his name on a chair. Or did he die in-post? Was his wife so struck with grief that one night, six months after his death and under a thin moon and thinner clouds, she walked to the bowls club, found the chair with his name on it and sat for a while, whispered sweet nothings to the stars?

I continued. Kept my head up. Kept looking and finding.

A collection of curios. Odds and ends. Objects and memories.

Charles and Diana.

Who would own a tray like this? My auntie. She might have owned a tray like this. Would she have had it on display? Probably. Though not in her best room. No, she’d have put it on the drawers at the bottom of the stairs. By the family photos. Near the front door. I miss my auntie.

I do miss my auntie.

By now, I’d walked full circle, passed every nook and cranny at the reclamation yard. It took no more than five minutes.

In that time, I remembered everything I’ve ever known about writing. That will and wanting is never enough. Stories can’t be forced. They must be found. Found and reclaimed.

In episode 145 of the Write for Your Life podcast, me and Donna talk about her most loved and hated things of 1993 and Mark Zuckerberg's lame book club. We also look at True Detective, which is great and gave me the willies, but its (mis)representation of women made me feel very uncomfortable. Oh, and we also talked aboit how to start working on your second drafts!

In episode 144 of the Write for Your Life podcast, me and Donna discuss the world's top sexy creative pursuits, writing myths and what not to say to writers, baby steps at learning Danish, and do writers repeat small writing exercises? Why yes. Yes they do. Like Morning Papers, Newspaper Blackouts and Index Card Shorts. Grab your headphones. Hit the playboard.

In this week's somewhat delayed episode of the Write for Your Life podcast, I talk to Donna about some extreme wind, what pages to include on your author website, Kickstarter and the Stacey Jay kerfuffle, Mark Zuckerberg's brand new book club and, seriously, who's controlling our channels? It's a good one. Listen up.

Fun title, eh? For those of you who are already subscribed and going about your lives as if this isn’t really, really important, then do feel free to carry on with what you were doing.

However. Two things.

First, some people may or may not know how to subscribe to the site. I’ve messed with it a lot over the last couple of years and things have moved, stuff has changed.

Second, it seems I’ve made a royal mess of the RSS feed. Basically, when I moved the site to the marvellous Squarespace, I effectively didn’t read the instructions and pressed the wrong button. It wasn’t their fault. Feedpress, the service that handles the feed, it wasn’t their fault either. I just wasn’t paying attention. I’m a giant nit.

Effectively, in October, I abandoned around 600+ subscribers in cold web space. I’ve tried to find a way to get them back, including various forums, help desks and some occasional shouting into the breeze. Nothing has worked. As far as I can tell, they are gone. I hope that they are okay.

All of this makes it a sensible time to point people to the following details. If you were one of the abandoned, my arms are open and I would like you back. I’m sorry.

In the first Write for Your Life episode of 2015, me and Donna look back at some highlights from last year and then forward to the writing changes ahead, which include me writing one novel instead of two, her allotting tasks to physical space and both of us making and sharing more of our work. Which I think you should do too.

First of all, happy new year. I hope you’re making plenty of exciting plans and working out how you’re going to put them into action. I know that’s what I’ve been doing.

One plan I have for 2015 is to start sharing more of what I make and write. Inspired by one of my favourite books of last year, Austin Kleon’s Show Your Work, I feel like it would do me good to publish more of what I’m up to.

I love reading about other writers’ habits and processes. I’m in the middle of writing my second novel, but I’d also like to lift my head and share with the world. I don’t find it useful to write in isolation. I used to write and share more. I’d like to do that again.

So let’s start with the Christmas card I made for my wife, which was also inspired by Austin Kleon, this time his blackout poetry. Christmas cards are always rubbish, aren’t they? This (last) year, I wanted to make something better, something worth keeping. So I made my first blackout poem.

If you want to keep up to date with other titbits, including what I’m up to, you can follow me on Instagram and Tumblr. I’ll be posting some stuff here too. Here’s the RSS feed.

In this Christmas special episode of the Write for Your Life podcast, I say a few thank yous before sending you off on a journey with The Little Match Girl via some marvellous music from friends of the podcast, Native and the Name. Happy holidays folks!

Episode 140 of the Write for Your Life podcast saw me and Donna talk about Christmas cards, family holidays, Zoellagate (again), publishing short stories, style guides for companies, and creating a style guide for your fiction. We're taking a break next week as our usual release day is Christmas Day. Hope that's all right.

Apologies for the delay in posting the link to last week's episode of the Write for Your Life podcast podcast. We talked about writers and mistakes in job applications, the huge fuss over Zoe Sugg's ghostwritten debut novel, changes to the Pulitzer Prize, and the importance of celebrating our small victories as writers.

On 1 December, I became a full-time employee at Cornerstones Education. They were my main client since going freelance in April, they're a great company and I'm very happy about how it's all panned out. It's the right place to be for me and my family.

That's not to say that I didn't love being a freelance writer. And I was all right at it too. I did it for nine months and I was never short of work. I worked on interesting projects for interesting clients and I was able to pay the bills. But sometimes the stars align and, life-wise, there is only one clear option.

My new role at Cornerstones is interesting, challenging and I am using all the skills I've developed since leaving university 11 years ago. The company writes, produces and sells a creative curriculum for primary schools. I’m now Curriculum Editor. It’s a big responsibility, but I’m enjoying it.

What does it all mean?

For me, all sorts of things, but you don’t need to worry about my mortgage or whatever. For you, it will hopefully add another angle to what we talk about on the podcast and what I write about here on the site.

Speaking of which.

After jazzing everything up to make the site look all freelance writery, I might well scale it back again. I’ve been toying with putting the blog back on the homepage for a while, so I might do that. We’ll see.

In this week's episode of the Write for Your Life podcast, me and Donna talk about pronunciation wars, the #wfyl hashtag, performing at spoken word events, writing workspaces and my new gold iPad. We also venture onto the problems with Kindle Unlimited for indie authors, and that voice in your head when you're writing.

This week me and Donna again try to pronounce a dear listener's name, then we talk about my new job (which I haven't written about here on the blog yet), the success and storytelling of Serial, and how to include simile and metaphor in your writing. Donna also reads a poem.